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DEFENCE 

Of    THK 

RIGHT  AND  THE  DUTY 


AMERICAN  UNION 


TO    IMPROVE    IT! 


NAVIGABLE  WATERS, 


A     SPEECH 


SAMUEL    B.    RUGGLES 


CONSTITUTION  HALL,  IN  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK, 


OCTOBER  8,  1852. 


O 
O 

in 
cm! 

o 
>- 


JSTEW    YORK: 
BAKER,    GODWIN    &    CO.,    PRINTERS, 

CORNER    NASSAU    AND    SPRUCF.    STREETS. 
1852. 


DEFENCE 

OF  THE  EIGHT  AND  THE  DUTY  OF  THE 

AMERICAN   UNION 


TO   IMPROVE   ITS 


NAVIGABLE  WATERS. 


IN   A   SPEECH   BY 


SAMUEL  B.  RUGGLES, 

AT   CONSTITUTION  HALL,  IN  THE   CITY   OF  NEW  YORK, 
OCTOBER    8,    1852. 


A  meeting  was  held,  on  the  evening  of  the  8th  October,  1852,  at  Constitu- 
tion Hall,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  for  the  purpose  of  hearing  an  address  from 
Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  Esq.,  upon  the  subject  of  the  Improvement  of  Rivers 
and  Harbors,  by  the  National  Government.  The  meeting  was  called  in  con- 
sequence of  the  compliance  of  Mr.  Ruggles  with  the  request  conveyed  in  the 
following  letter : 

New  York,  Tuesday,  Oct,  5,  1852. 

Hon.  Samuel  B.  Ruggles — Dear  Sir  :  Among  the  issues  of  the  pending 
Presidential  Canvass,  our  city  has  special  interest  in  that  which  relates  to 
the  duty  of  the  National  Government  to  aid  the  National  Commerce,  by  the 
improvement  of  our  Rivers  and  Harbors. 

We  take  the  liberty,  on  behalf  of  a  large  number  of  our  fellow-citizens, 
to  request  that  you  will  address  them  upon  this  subject  at  as  early  a  day  as 


M180835 


may  suit  your  convenience.  Your  former  connection  with  this  matter  as  Pre- 
sident of  the  Board  of  Commissioners  of  the  Canals  of  this  great  State, — 
works  truly  national  in  their  relations, — the  distinguished  abilities  which  you 
brought  to  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  that  high  position,  and  the  general 
interest  which  you  have  always  manifested  in  the  subject,  lead  us  to  look  to 
you  with  confidence  for  information  upon  it  which  may  be  useful  in  the  coming 
eontest. 

Trusting  that  you  may  find  it  convenient  to  comply  with  our  wishes  in 
this  respect. 

We  are,  very  truly,  four  obedient  servants, 

DANIEL  LORD,  CHARLES  KING, 

JAMES   G.  KING,  SIMEON  DRAPER, 

WM.  B.  ASTOR,  J.  J.  ASTOR, 

C.  AUGUSTUS  DAVIS,  H.  J.  RAYMOND, 

GEORGE  W.  BLUNT,  MOSES  MAYNARD,  Jr., 

JOHN  WARD,  A.  WAKEMAN, 
(and  many  others.) 

The  meeting  was  organized  by  the  appointment  of  Charles  Augustus 
Davis,  Esq.,  Chairman,  and  George  W.  Blunt,  Esq.,  Secretary. 

The  letter  of  invitation  having  been  read,  Mr.  Ruggles  addressed  the 
meeting,  as  follows : 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  :  I  am  here  this  evening,  upon  your 
kind  invitation,  to  address  you  on  the  subject  of  the  improvement,  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  of  the  Rivers  and  Harbors,  required  for 
the  safety  of  our  National  Commerce. 

The  nattering  manner  in  which  you  have  referred  to  my  former  connec- 
tion with  the  public  works  of  this  State,  deserves  my  grateful  acknowledge- 
ments ;  and  I  beg  to  assure  you,  that  any  efforts  I  may  have  made  to  hasten 
the  completion  of  these  great  channels  of  commercial  intercourse,  are  more 
than  repaid  by  this  proof  of  your  regard.  I  hope  that  you  will  permit  me  to 
add,  in  justice  to  myself,  that  these  efforts  never  had  any  personal  object, 
beyond  the  satisfaction  of  contributing,  in  some  small  measure,  to  the  general 
good. 

The  proper  improvement  of  the  great  navigable  waters  of  the  Union,  to 
render  them  safe  and  convenient  for  its  rapidly  expanding  commerce,  is  a  sub- 
ject highly  important  to  the  American  People.  It  ought  to  be  above  and 
beyond  all  party  conflicts ;  but  I  regret  to  perceive  that  it  is  deeply  involved 
in  the  approaching  Presidential  Election. 

The  Whig  party,  to  which  we  belong,  have  now  been  urging,  for  many 
years,  the  improvement  of  our  Rivers  and  Harbors  by  the  National  Govern' 


ment.  Their  opponents  deny  such  improvements  to  be  constitutional  or  ne- 
cessary, or  claim  that,  if  necessary  at  all,  they  should  be  made  solely  by  the 
separate  States. 

It  was  some  years,  before  the  issue  on  this  question  was  presented  in  the 
precise  form  I  have  above  stated  ;  but  recent  events  have  brought  it  distinctly 
in  this  shape  before  the  American  people  ;  and  it  now  forms  the  most  promi- 
nent, among  the  features  which  distinguish  the  contending  parties.  In  dis- 
cussing the  merits  of  the  candidates  now  before  us,  I  shall  therefore  seek  to 
confine  myself  strictly  to  the  attitude  they  respectively  occupy,  in  relation  to 
this  great  question.  Above  all  I  shall  endeavor  to  avoid  personalities,  and 
shall  cheerfully  follow  the  example  recently  set  by  General  Cass,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  of  our  opponents,  and  admit  at  once  that  both  the  candidates 
are  men  of  patriotism  and  honor. 

The  fundamental  position  taken  by  the  Whigs,  who  claim  that  the  Nation 
should  make  the  necessary  River  and  Harbor  improvements,  is  that  the  navi- 
gable waters  of  the  United  States,  for  all  purposes  of  commerce  known  to 
the  Constitution,  are  national  waters.  On  the  other  hand,  our  opponents 
contend  that  those  waters  are  not  national,  but  local,  and  that  their  improve- 
ment should  be  exclusively  committed  to  the  respective  States.  They  further 
propose  that,  for  the  purpose  of  such  local  improvements,  Congress  should 
now  consent  that  each  S:ate  may  lay  tonnage  duties  on  that  portion  of  our 
navigable  waters  falling  within  its  limits.  It  is  this  latter  proposition,  compa- 
ratively of  recent  origin,  which  we  deem  particularly  destructive  and  alarming, 
and  we  oppose  it  not  only  as  impracticable  and  inexpedient,  but  as  unjust,  un- 
constitutional, and  denationalizing. 

For  what  is  the  Nation  of  which  we  are  a  part?  What  are  its  navigable 
waters  ?  What  is  its  commerce  ?  What  is  its  Constitution  ?  And  what 
rights  does  that  Constitution  confer,  and  what  obligations  does  it  impose,  in 
respect  to  the  national  commerce? 

The  Nation  occupies  an  important  portion  of  the  earth,  and  stands  among 
the  great  continental  powers  of  the  civilized  world.  Embracing  twenty 
degrees  of  latitude  in  the  temperate  zone  of  the  North  American  Continent, 
and  stretching  through  nearly  sixty  degrees  of  longitude  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  it  covers  the  whole  Continental  expanse  within  those  vast  limits. 
In  territorial  area,  it  is  now  nearly  as  large  as  Europe ;  but  running  down  to 
the  verge  of  the  tropics,  it  has  a  much  greater  variety  of  climate  and  culture, 
and  far  exceeds  the  whole  of  Europe  in  every  element  of  continental 
strength. 

It  has  more  ready  access  than  Europe  to  the  two  oceans — the  great  high- 
ways of  the  globe — and  lying  ten  degrees  nearer  the  equator,  its  geographi- 
cal position,  in  any  great  national  or  commercial  struggle,  will  be  much  more 
convenient  and  commanding. 


But  in  one  all-important  respect,  it  very  far  exceeds  Europe;  for  it  has, 
what  Europe  has  not — one  vast,  unbroken  chain  of  navigable  waters,  over- 
spreading its  interior,  and  nearly  covering  its  whole  territorial  area,  binding  all 
its  portions  in  commercial  and  political  unity,  and  thus  concentrating  to  a 
degree  the  world  sees  nowhere  else,  the  national  power  of  a  continent. 

In  the  providence  of  God,  this  great  portion  of  the  earth  has  been  com- 
mitted to  our  care.  Let  us,  therefore,  look  at  it  a  little  more  minutely,  and 
see  what  it  contains. 

We  find  it  to  be  about  three  thousand  miles  wide,  of  which  two  thousand 
are  spread  out  in  one  vast  plain,  lying  nearly  midway  between  the  two  oceans. 
This  plain  is  separated  by  the  Alleghany  Mountains  on  the  East  from  the 
Atlantic,  and  by  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  the  West  from  the  Pacific.  The 
remaining  portions  of  the  Continent,  which  are  comparatively  mere  fragments, 
consist  of  a  narrow  belt,  less  than  two  hundred  miles  wide,  between  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  the  Atlantic,  and  a  broader  belt  about  eight  hundred  miles  wide 
between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Pacific. 

This  plain  is  drained  by  one  great  river,  and  it  is  so  nearly  level  with  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  that  the  river  and  all  its  tributaries  are  susceptible  of 
unbroken  navigation.  The  great  valley  which  they  drain  is  not  only  of  une- 
qualled agricultural  fertility,  butinits  unrivalled  capacity  for  inland  commerce, 
it  possesses  the  vital  element  which  must  make  it  dominant,  as  the  central  seat 
of  empire. 

The  great  problem,  therefore,  for  us,  the  American  people,  to  work  out,  was 
to  connect  this  valley  by  adequate  means  of  commercial  intercourse,  first  with 
the  Atlantic,  and,  in  due  time,  with  the  Pacific. 

The  first  step  in  the  process  has  been  accomplished.  Employing  as  parts  of 
the  system  the  great  chain  of  lakes,  which  lie  on  the  North-eastern  border  of 
the  valley,  we  have  constructed  artificial  channels,  which  connect  the  Missis- 
sippi in  an  unbroken  line  of  navigation  with  the  Atlantic,  so  that  streams  of 
inland  trade,  secure  from  foreign  aggression,  and,  as  yet,  from  local  interfer- 
ence, are  flowing  throughout  all  our  territory  lying  east  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. 

The  history  of  this  nation,  which  now  covers  little  more  .than  two  hundred 
years,  discloses  two  important  facts.  First — that  Providence  has  undoubtedly 
designed  to  build  up  on  this  Western  Hemisphere,  one  great,  homogeneous 
Power;  and  next,  that  the  navigable  waters  of  the  United  States,  and  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  are  the  two  great  instrumentalities  by  which 
that  design  is  to  be  effected.  Our  history  forms  only  a  part  in  that  great  pro- 
gress; but  it  has  carried  us  to  a  point,  from  wThich  we  can  clearly  survey  the 
past  and,  to  some  extent,  discern  the  future. 

Without  attempting  any  minute  historical  detail,  we  may  say,  generally,  that 
America  was  civilized  bv  several  European  nations,  of  different  tongue  and 


race.  Spain  seized  the  South,  France  the  North,  England  the  middle  which, 
was  itself  subdivided  into  thirteen  separate  colonies ;  and  Holland  and  Sweden 
each  attempted  to  snatch  a  part,  but  were  soon  displaced.  For  more  than  a 
hundred  years,  France  not  only  kept  its  portion,  but  added  to  it  the  whole  of 
the  Mississippi  valley.  Men  are  yet  living,  who  have  seen  the  territory,  now 
occupied  by  this  nation,  divided  among  these  three  European  powers.  In  1763, 
France  surrendered  its  portion  to  England,  and  twenty  years  afterwards,  in 
1783,  England  surrendered  to  its  thirteen  colonies,  then  become  States,  all 
between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Mississippi.  By  subsequent  negotiations,  within 
the  last  fifty  years,  they  have  acquired  the  residue  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Pacific. 

By  these  successive  operations,  the  motley  groups  of  European  colonists 
that  came  out  two  hundred  years  ago  to  divide  this  continent,  have  been  fused 
into  one  common  mass,  and  the  Continent  of  America  now  stands  united  be- 
fore the  world. 

The  most  curious  feature  in  this  progress,  is  the  slow  rate  at  which  we 
first  advanced.  To  us  of  the  present  hour,  somewhat  accustomed  to  the  giant 
pace  with  which  the  nation  makes  its  way,  the  fact  is  hardly  credible  that, 
after  sixty  years  of  struggle,  the  Pilgrims  of  Massachusetts  found  their  west- 
ern  frontier  on  the  Connecticut  River,  while  all  the  energies  of  the  New-Ne- 
therlands could  push  the  Dutchmen  no  further  west  than  the  Mohawk,  sixteen 
miles  from  Albany. 

In  fact,  down  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  up  to 
its  close,  very  little  was  known  of  America  we^t  of  the  Alleghanies.  The 
thirteen  colonies,  thinly  sprinkled  along  the  narrow  belt  between  the  moun- 
tains and  the  Atlantic,  looked  almost  exclusively  to  the  ocean,  for  the  means 
of  commercial  intercourse.  They  dealt  mainly  with  the  parent  State,  very 
little  with  each  other,  and  not  at  all  with  the  great  interior  beyond  the  Alle- 
ghanies. Not  a  carriage  road  of  any  description  led  into  it ;  and  it  lay  at  the  peace 
of  1783,  avast  wilderness,  all  but  unbroken,  through  which  the  Mississippi 
and  its  tributaries  were  flowing  in  solitude,  undisturbed  by  civilized  man. 

But  the  moment  the  peace  of  1783  extended  the  Western  boundary  of  the 
United  States  to  that  river,  the  men  of  the  day  began  to  turn  their  attention  to 
this  great  acquisition.  They  had  gone  through  the  Revolution,  under  certain  Ar- 
ticles of  Confederation,  intended  mainly  for  military  purposes,  and  which  had 
worked  badly  enough  even  in  that  respect.  Their  affairs  were  managed  by  a 
Federal  Congress,  in  which  each  State  had  a  vote.  An  ordinance  was  intro- 
duced into  that  body  by  Mr.  Jeffejison,  in  1784,  for  the  government  of  a  por- 
tion of  the  territory  beyond  the  mountains,  but  it  was  wholly  silent  on  the 
subject  of  commerce  or  navigation. 

And  now  the  Mississippi  is  first  seen,  dimly  foreshadowing  its  future  pow- 
er as  a  great    element  of  American  unity.     Some  of  our  statesmen  caught 


6 

glimpses  not  only  of  its  geographical  extent,  and  the  wide-spread  develop- 
ment of  its  valley,  but  also  of  its  vital  political  importance,  as  a  great  seat  of 
empire  and  perpetual  bond  of  National  Union.  But  a  stream  possessing  such 
power  and  attributes  was  a  new  fact  in  the  history  of  human  civilization.  In 
Asia,  the  eagle  eye  of  Alexander  the  Great  may  have  seen  something  a  little 
like  it  in  the  Indus,  but  Western  Europe  afforded  no  example.  Its  scanty 
and  ragged  peninsulas  projecting  into  the  Atlantic  from  the  Eastern  Conti- 
nent, could  hold  no  such  basin.  The  two  small  British  Islands  dismembered 
from  that  Continent,  furnished  us  language  and  laws,  but  no  idea  of  a  river. 

But  even  the  trifling  streams  of  Europe  were  not  wholly  without  instruc- 
tion. In  England,  the  tyranny  of  King  John  six  hundred  years  ago,  in  ob- 
structing some  of  their  little  rivers,  led  the  bold  reformers  at  Runnymede  to 
insert  "  freedom  of  rivers"  as  a  fundamental  clause  in  Magna  Charta;  while 
on  the  Continent,  darkened  by  diplomacy,  the  treaty  of  Westphalia  in  1648, 
deliberately  locked  up  the  navigation  of  the  Scheldt,  a  valuable  commercial 
stream  leading  into  the  German  Ocean,  and  in  the  face  of  civilized  Christian 
Europe,  kept  it  locked  up  nearly  a  century  and  a  half. 

It  was  under  the  salutary  instruction  thus  afforded  by  the  Scheldt,  and  just 
before  the  French  Revolution  broke  its  shackles,  that  our  thirteen  Confede- 
rated States  acquired  the  Mississippi. 

In  March,  1785,  Rufus  King,  then  a  delegate  from  Massachusetts  in  the 
Congress  of  the  Confederation,  received  from  Timothy  Pickering  a  letter 
containing  these  emphatic  and  memorable  words: 

"  The  water  communications  in  that  country  will  always  be  in  the  highest 
degree  interesting  to  the  inhabitants.  It  seems  very  necessary  to  secure  the 
freedom  of  navigating  these  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  States,  I  hope  we 
shall  have  no  Scheldt s  in  that  country." 

The  high  duty  of  carrying  into  effect  that  great  suggestion,  immediately  oc- 
cupied the  attention  of  Mr.  King  and  his  associates.  The  honor  of  framing  the 
clause— which  secures,  "  not  for  a  day,  but  for  all  time,"  freedom  of  commerce 
over  an  unbroken  net-work  of  navigable  water  spread  out  for  more  than  six- 
teen thousand  miles — was  shared  between  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  then 
standing  shoulder  to  shoulder,  where  they  had  stood  throughout  the  Revo- 
lution. 

The  clause  was  formally  introduced  into  the  Congress  by  Mr.  Grayson,  of 
Virginia,  and  seconded  by  Mr.  King,  of  Massachusetts.  Listen  to  its  words, 
so  broadly  national,  so  purely  American: 

"  The  navigable  waters  leading  into  the  Mississippi  and  St.  Lawrence,  and 
the  carrying  places  between  the  same,  shall  be  common  property,  and  forever 
free,  as  well  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  country,  as  to  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  and  those  of  any  other  States  that  may  be  admitted  into  the 
Confederacy — without  any  tax,  duty  or  impost  therefor." 


?' 

The  clause  was  immediately  incorporated  into  the  ordinance,  and  passed 
by  the  Congress  on  the  13th  day  of  July,  1787. 

Here,  then,  we  behold  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  internal  navigation  of  Ame- 
rica. It  throws  its  protecting  mantle  not  only  over  the  magnificent  area 
drained  by  the  Mississippi  and  all  its  tributaries,  but  covers  with  its  ample 
folds  the  whole  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  with  its  chain  of  inland  seas ;  and. 
as  if  prophetic  of  the  labors  of  posterity,  it  smooths  the  way,  by  securing  per- 
petual freedom  even  to  the  land  portages,  or  carrying  places,  between  those 
two  great  systems  of  waters.  The  precursor  of  the  Constitution,  it  was  built 
on  a  basis  too  broad  to  be  displaced,  even  by  that  majestic  structure.  It  was 
never  superseded,  modified,  or  weakened,  but  it  was  taken  bodily  into  the  very 
frame-work  of  the  Constitution,  which  came  into  being,  expressly  subject  to 
its  immutable  obligation.  The  whole  power  of  the  Union  is  incompetent  to 
abate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  this  fundamental  compact,  pre-existing  at  its  birth, 
and  destined  to  endure  forever. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  had  no  regard  whatever  to  commerce.  On 
the  contrary,  they  distinctly  prohibited  the  Confederation  from  interfering  in 
any  way,  even  by  treaties  with  foreign  nations,  with  the  power  of  the  sepa- 
rate States  to  levy  separate  duties  at  their  sole  discretion.  The  only  sem- 
blance of  commercial  power  conferred  by  the  Articles,  is  a  permission  to  regu- 
late trade  with  the  Indians — and  not  even  with  them,  should  they  reside  within 
the  limits  of  a  State.  In  that  disjointed  and  semi-barbarous  state,  the  Confe- 
deration came  out  of  the  Revolution. 

The  melancholy  condition  of  the  nominally  confederated,  but  really  dis- 
united States,  during  the  four  years  succeeding  the  peace  of  1783,  is  too 
well  known.  It  is  truly  the  most  discreditable,  if  not  the  most  painful  period 
of  our  history.  Amid  all  its  demoralizations  and  abuses,  nothing  was  more 
conspicuous  than  the  commercial  rivalries  and  disturbances,  of  which  our  na- 
vigable waters  became  the  theatre.  Commerce  and  navigation  having  no  com- 
mon head,  and  the  States  no  longer  threatened  by  a  common  enemy,  they 
were  fast  lapsing  into  the  worst  condition  of  the  petty  Republics  of  the  mid- 
dle ages ;  and  those  who  had  studied  the  politics  only  of  disunited  Europe» 
confidently  predicted  wasting  civil  war,  which  would  eventually  compel  the 
exhausted  parties  to  return  to  the  common  protection  of  the  British  monarch. 

The  Chesapeake,  divided  between  Maryland  and  Virginia,  each  claiming  to 
levy  separate  duties  on  its  commerce,  became  the  scene  of  constant  disorder 
while  New  York  and  New  Jersey  disputed  for  the  Hudson.  In  the  vivid  lan- 
guage of  the  day,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Madison,  "  New  Jersey,  placed  between 
Philadelphia  and  New  York,  was  a  cask,  tapped  at  both  ends ;  and  North  Caro- 
lina, between  Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  a  patient  bleeding  at  both  arms." 

The  Chesapeake,  however,  has  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  bring  the 
disputants  to  their  senses.     The  feeble  Confederation  being  wholly  helpless 


8 

and  unable  to  provide  a  remedy,  a  Convention,  called  by  several  of  the  separate 
States,  to  consider  the  disorders  prevailing  on  the  Chesapeake,  assembled  at 
Annapolis.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  Alexander  Hamilton,  of  New  York, 
was  there,  and  saw  the  full  value  of  the  occasion — that  his  clear  intellect  and 
transcendant  genius,^at  once  acute  and  comprehensive,  discerned  in  our  navi- 
gable waters  the  key  to  a  political  union  of  the  discordant  States. 

With  consummate  sagacity  he  built  upon  this  foundation,  and  in  the  sec- 
ond convention  which  assembled  soon  afterwards,  with  enlarged  powers,  at 
Philadelphia,  he  introduced  into  the  Constitution  the  great  commercial  clause, 
which  makes  it  imperishable.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  undervalue  the  other 
splendid  manifestations  of  creative  power,  exhibited  in  that  matchless  instru- 
ment— its  novel  and  felicitous  intermixture  of  the  Federal  with  the  Nationa] 
element — the  perfection  and  harmony  of  its  component  parts — its  massive 
strength,  yet  faultless  symmetry — and  above  all,  its  freedom  from  geographi- 
cal trammels,  permitting  the  indefinite  expansion,  yet  perfect  security  of  the 
Great  Nation  it  called  into  being ;  but  all  these  excellences  would  have  been 
unavailing  but  for  the  one  all-controlling,  all-pervading  power  over  commerce, 
which  united  and  nationalized  our  vast  navigable  waters,  and  made  them  one 
and  indivisible  forever. 

On  the  4th  day  of  March,  1789,  the  Old  Thirteen  States  ceased  to  be  con- 
federated and  became  united.  The  first  sentence  of  the  Constitution  an- 
nounced to  mankind,  that  the  people  of  these  Thirteen  States  had  entered  into 
a  more  perfect  Union.  The  4th  of  July,  1776,  had  proclaimed  the  indepen- 
dence of  thirteen  separate  States;  but  the  4th  of  March,  1789,  was  the  birth 
day  of  the  Nation — for  then  it  first  came  into  the  world  with  a  nation's  form 
and  features,  and  all  the  proper  functions  of  a  nation. 

The  Confederation  was  an  old  idea,  borrowed  from  Europe,  but  the  Union 
was  purely  American. 

The  great  novelty  of  the  American  Constitution  consists  in  the  skillful 
distribution  of  the  necessary  powers  of  government  between  the  Nation  and 
the  States  which  compose  it.  Appropriating  no  power  rightfully  belonging  to 
the  separate  States  and  necessary  for  the  regulation  of  their  local  affairs  and 
peculiar  institutions,  it  confers  upon  the  Nation  only  those  great  attributes  of 
sovereignty,  needed  for  the  due  enjoyment  and  proper  preservation  of  its  own 
existence.  And  thus  we  have  a  limited,  national  government,  the  first  the 
world  ever  saw — limited,  not  in  its  powers — as  is  sometimes  inaccurately 
stated — but  in  the  number  and  nature  of  its  powers.  In  the  exercise  of  the 
several  powers  which  are  expressly  granted  and  enumerated,  it  cannot  be 
limited.  It  must  be  supreme.  For  who  would  call  the  power  "  to  raise  and 
support  armies,"  or  "  to  provide  and  maintain  a  navy,"  a  limitedpower  ? 

And  so  of  the  power  in  question,  "  to  regulate  commerce  " — is  any  limit 
imposed  on  the  power  to  regulate?     Can  any  authority  other  than  that  of  the 


9 

Union  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  oramong  the  States  ?  Is  not 
the  power  to  "regulate"  exclusive,  by  the  mere  force  of  the  term  itself?  How 
is  it  possible  for  more  than  one  authority  to  regulate  the  same  thing,  at  the 
same  time? 

The  only  sensible  inquiry  must  be,  what  is  a  regulation  of  commerce,  and 
what  does  it  embrace  ? 

And  here  we  need  not  waste  time  upon  verbal  subtleties  or  metaphysical 
abstractions.  We  leave  hair-splitting  to  those  happy  regions  where  the  faculty 
for  that  pursuit  is  more  fully  developed.  But  we  do  ask,  and  insist  that  a 
little  common  sense  shall  be  employe-id  in  constructing  the  National  Constitu- 
tion. We  look  up  to  it  as  a  great  and  beneficent  instrument — almost  a  gift  of 
God  himself;  and  we  claim  in  its  behalf,  that  it  shall  be  fairly  and  honestly 
interpreted,  in  its  true  substance  and  plain  intent. 

If  we  distinctly  understand  the  position  taken  by  those  who  deny  the  power 
of  the  National  Government  to  regulate  commerce,  by  improving  rivers,  or 
constructing  harbors  or  other  works  necessary  for  its  security,  it  is  this :  That 
the  power  to  "  regulate  commerce  "  denotes  only  the  power  to  regulate  the 
rates  of  impost  and  duty  to  be  laid  upon  it,  and  of  restraining  any  separate 
State  from  laying  any  such  duty  or  impost ;  in  a  word,  that  regulation  means 
something  abstract  and  invisible,  and  does  not  embrace  anything  physical  or 
visible. 

Now,  in  answer  to  this,  we  would  urge  that  the  word  "  regulate  "  is  of  all 
others,  the  one  conveying  the  broadest  possible  signification,  covering  every 
imaginable  mode  of  action,  visible  or  invisible.  For  that  very  reason  it  was 
selected  by  those  who  framed  the  Constitution.  The  great  architects  who 
reared  that  structure  were  no  ordinary  workmen.  They  well  knew  the  size 
and  the  strength  of  the  words  they  were  using.  They  laid  their  work  in  huge 
blocks,  that  it  might  last  forever. 

If  we  examine  the  Constitution,  we  find  that  a  prior  section  had  already 
given  to  Congress  the  power  of  laying  duties  and  imposts,  and  that  another 
section  expressly  prohibited  the  separate  States  from  doing  so.  No  imagin- 
able reason  could  exist  for  introducing  a  fresh  clause  again  conferring  the 
same  power,  and  enforcing  the  same  prohibition,  and  that,  too,  by  a  mere  im- 
plication. The  style  of  the  Constitution  is  quite  too  faultless,  to  leave  it  pos- 
sible that  its  authors  could  introduce  any  such  superfluity  or  surplusage. 

But  leaving  this  examination  of  the  mere  words — the  hollow  shell  of  the 
Constitution — we  shall  contend,  that  neither  its  framers  nor  the  American  peo- 
ple could  ever  have  intended  to  leave  the  Government  without  the  power  to 
regulate  commerce,  and  that,  too,  by  physical  and  visible  means;  that  it  was 
indispensably  necessary  for  the  Government  thus  to  exercise  it;  that  the  Gov- 
ernment, in  fact,  has  constantly  done  so  from  its  organization  to  the  present 
moment ;  and  that  this  long,  uninterrupted,  and  all  but  unquestioned  usage,  has 


10 

now  settled  and  firmly  established  the  constitutional  doctrine,  that  the  power 
to  regulate  commerce  includes  the  power  to  do  so  practically,  by  affording 
such  physical  facilities  as  are  needful  for  its  existence,  safety  and  convenience. 

For  let  us  look  back,  and  see  what  commerce  did  in  fact  require,  and  what 
the  Government  has  done. 

George  Washington  took  the  oath  of  office,  as  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  City  of  New-York,  the  4th  of  March,  1789.  It  is  true  that 
he  had  been  a  "  military  chieftain,"  but  he  certainly  would  be  the  last  to  as- 
sume unlawful  power. 

Now,  it  so  happens  that  almost  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  of  his  official 
acts,  was  to  regulate  commerce,  and  that,  too,  in  the  very  mode  for  which  we 
contend. 

A  light-house  was  then  standing  on  Sandy  Hook,  almost  within  his  very 
sight.  It  had  been  erected  in  1762,  by  Royal  or  Colonial  authority.  Four  or 
five  other  lights  had  also  been  placed  at  distant  points,  on  the  rocky  coast  of 
New  England.  Upon  the  long,  sandy  shore,  stretching  for  nearly  seven  hun- 
dred miles,  from  New- York  to  Charleston,  but  one  solitary  light  was  burning. 
The  rickety  old  Confederation  found  no  Federal  authority  for  upholding 
structures  of  that  description,  and  the  continent  virtually  lay  buried  in  dark- 
ness. 

A  letter  is  now  in  existence  in  the  proper  hand-writing  of  George  Wash- 
ington, written  soon  after  he  took  the  oath  of  office,  directing  the  keeper  of  Sandy 
Hook  Light  to  keep  it  burning,  until  Congress  should  take  it  especially  under 
their  charge. 

The  first  Congress,  embracing  among  their  number  the  very  fathers  of  the 
Republic,  hastened  to  exercise  their  constitutional  duty.  The  law  of  April 
7,  1789,  being  their  ninth  act,  promptly  and  comprehensively  provided,  "that 
all  expenses  incurred  before  its  passage,  for  the  necessary  support,  maintenance, 
and  repairs  of  all  light-houses,  beacons,  buoys,  and  for  the  piers  erected,  placed' 
or  sunk,  at  the  entrance  of,  or  within  any  bay,  inlet,  harbor  or  port  of  the  United 
States,  for  rendering  the  navigation  thereof  easy  and  safe,  shall  be  defrayed  out 
of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States." 

Regarding  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  as  a  portion  of  the  waters  of  the  United 
States,  it  then  directs  a  light-house  to  be  erected  near  its  entrance;  and  thus, 
the  ancient  soil  of  Virginia  saw  the  first  national  work  for  the  regulation  of 
commerce,  erected  by  the  government  of  this  Union.  I  am  painfully  aware, 
that  the  rapid  extension  of  these  structures,  has  seriously  disturbed  the  ab- 
stract meditations  of  some  of  the  political  philosophers  of  that  venerable 
commonwealth;  but  nevertheless,  lights  and  light-houses  have  made  their 
way,  until  the  whole  Atlantic  coast  is  illuminated  from  the  St.  Croix  to  the  Rio 
Grande.  In  all  the  political  mutations  we  have  undergone  during  the  last 
sixty  years,  no  party  has  been  found  strong  enough,  or  barbarous  enough,  to 


u 

prevent  the  Government  from  erecting  and  upholding  these  structures.  But 
where  in  all  that  long  period,  did  it  find  the  constitutional  authority,  if  not  in  the 
power  to  regulate  commerce  1 

In  truth,  the  existence  of  such  a  power  is  irresistibly  deducible,  from  the 
absolute  and  evident  necessity  for  its  exercise.  The  Constitution  denied  it  to 
the  States.  Could  it  intend  to  leave  the  Government  without  the  power  ? 
Could  a  Christian  community  exist  and  stand  erect,  in  the  family  of  civilized 
nations,  and  shroud  its  shores  in  utter  darkness  ?  For  what  do  we  see  when 
we  look  around  us  ?  The  British  Islands  bjazing  with  upwards  of  three 
hundred  lights — France  with  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty — the  Baltic,  the 
Mediterranean,  the  Euxine,  all  illuminated ;  and  even  in  the  frozen  North, 
Imperial  Russia  lighting  the  American  mariner  on  his  pathway  through  the 
White  Sea,  out  to  the  Polar  Basin.  The  whole  globe  from  North  to  South, 
from  East  to  West,  is  encircled  with  these  living  monuments  of  humanity  and 
civilization.  And  could  America,  young  and  vigorous  America,  refuse  to  lend 
its  hand  to  such  a  work  ? 

In  1801,  Thomas  Jefferson  became  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
If  any  one  expects  from  me  any  disrespect  to  the  memory  of  that  distinguished 
man,  he  will  be  disappointed.  I  am  aware,  that  among  the  numerous  and 
often  fugitive  writings,  coming  from  his  prolific  pen,  at  different  periods  of  his 
life,  passages  may  possibly  be  found,  which  would  narrow  the  powers,  not 
only  of  the  government  of  the  Union,  but  of  all  other  governments  of  every 
description.  It  may  even  be  true,  that  some  of  his  political  suggestions 
would  not  wholly  suit  a  country  so  progressive  as  ours.  They  certainly 
would  not  harmonize  with  some  of  the  greatest  acts  of  his  own  administra- 
tion. For  who  will  deny,  that  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  was  greatest  of 
them  all  ? — and  yet  this  signal  act  of  statesmanship,  was  only  the  exercise  by 
Mr.  Jefferson,  of  the  constitutional  power  to  facilitate  and  protect,  and  in 
that  way  to  regulate  the  commerce  of  the  Union. 

Louisiana,  originally  colonized  by  France,  had  been  temporally  trans- 
ferred to  Spain.  Experience  has  sufficiently  taught  the  two  Americas  the 
effects  of  Spanish  dominion  upon  human  progress.  The  Plata,  the  Amazon, 
the  Oronoco,  have  fully  told  the  story  in  one  of  the  Continents,  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi might  have  told  it  in  the  other. 

Suffice  it  to  say,  that  about  the  time  Mr.  Jefferson's  accession  to  office, 
the  American  people,  then  just  beginning  to  descend  the  western  slope  of 
the  Alleghanies,  found  their  access  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  through  the  Mis- 
sissippi, obstructed  not  only  by  snags  and  sandbars,  as  at  present,  but  by  an 
impediment  still  worse — a  Spanish  governor  at  its  mouth,  occupying  the  port 
of  New  Orleans. 

Steam  had  not  then  entered  the  world  to  subdue  its  waters,  and  not  a 
vessel  was  seen  throughout  the  whole  length  of  the  Mississippi,  but  Indian 


12 

canoes  and  occasionally  a  barge  or  Mackinaw  boat  laden  with  furs,  and  drift- 
ing down  the  current. 

But  even  this  infant  commerce  Mr.  Jefferson  deemed  it  his  duty  to  regu- 
late, protect,  and  facilitate,  and  that  too  with  no  feeble  hand.  Earnest  efforts 
were  made,  not  for  the  purpose  of  removing  the  physical  impediments  in  the 
stream,  for  in  the  then  existing  state  of  the  navigation  they  were  less  im- 
portant, but  to  buy  from  Spain  the  port  of  New  Orleans  outright.  But 
entreaties  and  even  threats  were  unavailing,  and  we  should  certainly  have 
gone  to  war,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  obtaining  the  necessary  facilities  which 
our  inland  trade  required,  but  for  the  fortunate  retrocession  of  the  colony  to 
France.  To  the  Government  of  that  country,  at  that  time  controlled  by 
Napoleon,  Mr.  Jefferson  immediately  sent  out  special  ministers  instructed 
to  purchase  New  Orleans — surely  not  for  the  purpose  of  adding  to  our  terri- 
tory, for  every  one  thought  we  had  enough — but  solely  to  secure  this  in- 
dispensable appendage  to  our  inland  commerce.  Now,  was  not  this  some- 
thing physical  and  visible  ? — something  beyond  the  abstract,  invisible,  and 
merely  legal  power  to  regulate  commerce  by  adjusting  the  rates  of  duties  and 
imposts? 

Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  at  first  succeed.  Napoleon  refused  to  sell  New 
Orleans,  unless  the  whole  of  Louisiana  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific 
were  purchased  with  it.  "The  whole  or  none,"  were  his  terms.  Our  min- 
isters sent  home  for  fresh  authority,  which  Mr.  Jefferson  promptly  gave,  and 
the  whole  was  purchased  for  sixteen  millions  of  dollars.  Looking  at  it  now, 
it  was  not  dear,  and  would  not  have  been  at  twenty  times  the  cost.  But 
where  was  there  a  word  in  the  Constitution,  giving  a  semblance  of  authority  to 
buy  it,  save  in  the  vast  and  beneficent  power  to  regulate  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  and  among  the  several  States  ? 

The  annexation  of  this  vast  domain  to  the  pre-existing  territory  of  the 
United  States,  vitally  altered,  not  only  the  relations  of  the  States,  one  to  the 
other,  but  also  the  relative  position  of  the  nation  to  the  great  powers  of  the 
world.  The  change,  not  then  so  apparent,  is  now  obvious  to  us  all.  The 
United  States  of  America  then  became  Continental  America,  not  only  in  name 
but  in  fact.  She  stood  before  the  world  one  of  its  imperial  powers,  uniting 
for  all  the  purposes  of  national  sovereignty,  the  continent  between  the  At- 
lantic and  the  Pacific. 

Now  let  us  look  at  our  system  of  navigable  waters,  as  modified  by  this 
cardinal  fact  in  our  civil  history — the  doubling  of  our  territorial  extent — and 
I  do  not  ask  you  to  do  this  for  any  idle  purpose  of  historical  inquiry,  but  for 
the  sake  of  stating  a  fundamental  proposition  which  directly  concerns  the  mat- 
ter in  hand,  and  which  I  shall  seek  to  prove,  which  is,  that  by  that  great  event, 
the  constitutional  responsibilities  of  the  National  Government,  in  respect  to 
the  regulation  of  commerce  on  its  navigable  waters,  were  almost  immeasurably 
increased. 


13 

It  is  not  that  the  political  supremacy  of  the  States  on  the  Atlantic  was 
then  extinguished, — for  thanks  to  our  glorious  Constitution,  it  has  taught  us 
to  know  no  East,  no  West, — but  it  is,  that  the  immense  commerce  called  into 
being,  by  the  concentration  then  effected  of  all  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi 
under  one  common  authority,  renders  that  of  the  Atlantic  comparatively  insig- 
nificant. 

The  commercial  movement  on  the  Atlantic  we  all  know,  for  figures  meas- 
ure it,  but  who  will  count  the  movement  of  the  Mississippi,  when  its  valley 
shall  be  fully  peopled?  Can  the  broken,  discordant  fragments  of  disunited 
Europe  furnish  us  the  rule  ?  Why,  the  Mississippi  valley,  if  laid  down  upon 
the  map  of  Europe,  would  all  but  cover  every  kingdom,  principality  and  power 
it  contains,  "patches  "  and  all,  from  Cadiz  to  the  Russian  frontier !  We  may 
know  the  aggregate  length  of  the  river  and  its  navigable  tributaries,  for  our 
engineers  tell  us  it  is  sixteen  thousand  seven  hundred  miles, — a  line  long 
enough  to  encircle  Europe,  and  leave  a  remnant  which  would  span  the  Atlantic  ; 
but  who  will  measure  the  gigantic  mass  of  the  products,  which  sixteen 
thousand  seven  hundred  miles  of  navigable  wateiyspread  out  in  one  unbroken 
net-work,  will  receive  from  populations  united  by  millions  and  tens  of  millions, 
and  concentrating  all  their  commerce  in  a  single  channel  ? 

My  friends,  the  interior  was  becoming  too  large.  Space  was  becoming 
inconvenient,  if  not  dangerous ;  and  it  was  time  for  Robert  Fulton  to  come 
into  the  world  and  build  a  steamboat ;  and  so  he  did,  in  1807,  four  years  after 
Mr.  Jefferson  bought  Louisiana.  I  cannot  but  think  God  holds  worldly  wealth 
in  light  account,  for  those  great  men  both  died  poor — but  a  nation's  gratitude 
will  make  their  memories  rich  forever. 

The  Hudson  was  the  scene  of  Mr.  Fulton's  first  success;  but  he  always 
said  the  Mississippi  would  behold  his  final  triumph.  His  ardent  aspirations 
were  quenched  by  his  early  and  lamented  death  ;  but  the  great  river  will  bear 
witness  forever  to  his  genius. 

The  current  of  that  stream  swollen  by  its  tributaries,  which  come  rolling 
down  from  the  broad  declivities  of  the  Alleghany  and  Rocky  Mountains,  was  so 
strong  as  nearly  to  destroy  its  value  for  the  purposes  of  commerce.  Its 
ascent,  from  New-Orleans  to  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio,  unaided  by  steam, 
often  required  from  two  to  three  months.  Mr.  Fulton's  invention  reduced 
it  to  four  days. 

It  was  that  great  victory  over  Nature,  virtually  annihilating  time  and 
space,  and  equalizing  the  condition  of  the  population  of  that  wide-spread  val- 
ley, which  has  imparted  to  the  Mississippi  its  highest  attribute — its  power  to 
bind  the  vast  communities  on  its  banks  in  perpetual,  political  union. 

The  great  object  of  the  Constitution  was,  to  nationalize  the  commerce  and 
navigable  waters  of  the  United  States,  by  uniting  them  all  under  a  common 
authority,  to  be  uniformly  exercised,  and  it  therefore  expressly  prohibited  the 


14 

separate  States  from  interfering  in  any  way  with  that  authority.  To  any  who 
may  contend,  that  the  States  possess  a  concurrent  authority  which  they  may 
lawfully  exercise,  until  it  shall  be  superseded  by  the  paramount  power  of  the 
Union,  we  will  merely  answer  that  the  authority  of  the  Union,  at  any  rate, 
becomes  supreme  when  exercised. 

.  The  waters  of  New-York  have  furnished  a  signal  evidence  of  this.  The 
State  Legislature,  to  reward  Mr.  Fulton's  services,  attempted  to  grant  to 
him,  for  a  term  of  years,  the  exclusive  right  of  navigating  the  Hudson  by 
steam.  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey  immediately  resisted.  They  passed 
laws  of  a  hostile  and  even  belligerent  character,  and  the  scenes  of  the  Con- 
federation and  the  Chesapeake  seemed  about  to  be  repeated.  A  steamboat 
from  New  Jersey,  bearing  the  significant  name  of  the  "  Bellona"  attempting 
to  enter  the  limits  of  New  York,  was  restrained  by  State  authority ;  but  its 
owner,  as  was  well  said  on  a  similar  occasion,  "  went  not  to  war,  but  to  lawP 
The  case  was  of  transcendant  importance,  directly  involving  the  supremacy  of 
the  Union  over  its  navigable  waters,  and  never  did  this  country  behold  a 
greater  display  of  intellectual  vigor  and  forensic  eloquence,  than  the  four 
great  combatants  exhibited  who  were  selected  to  vindicate,  on  that  occasion, 
the  right  of  the  respective  Governments,  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  with  Chief  Justice  Marshall  at  its  head. 

The  written  opinion  of  that  great  jurist,  in  deciding  this  question,  is  a 
masterpiece  of  constitutional  logic.  It  scattered  to  the  winds  every  pretence 
of  State  authority,  to  interfere  with  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Union,  and 
established  the  national  supremacy  on  a  basis  which  nothing  can  shake. 

And  what  course  did  New  York  pursue,  on  receiving  this  decision  ?  Did 
she  attempt  to  nullify — to  secede — to  assume  the  air  and  port  of  an  offended 
Nation  ?  Did  she  attempt  to  seize  the  Hudson,  and  go  off  with  it  out  of  the 
Union  ?  No,  my  friends,  she  obeyed  the  law  and  the  Constitution,  and  stands, 
where  I  trust  she  will  always  stand,  a  lofty  example  of  national  loyalty  and 
dignified  obedience. 

And  now  we  enter  upon  a  curious  portion  of  the  history  of  our  navigable 
waters.  A  mischievous  political  sect  has  arisen  in  our  American  world,  which 
holds  as  a  cardinal  point  of  party  faith,  that  the  navigable  waters  of  the 
Union  are  those  only,  in  which  the  tides  of  the  ocean  ebb  and  flow. 

This  narrow  notion  originated  in  the  common  law  of  England,  an  island 
in  which  rivers,  in  our  American  sense,  are  not  only  unknown,  but  impossible. 
England,  lying  in  a  high  northern  latitude,  its  shores  are  washed  by  an  ocean 
tide,  which  rises  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet,  and  rushes  into  the  numerous 
bays,  which  deeply  indent  the  coast.  Little  streams  there  called  "  rivers," 
empty  into  these  bays,  but  above  the  high-water  mark  imprinted  by  the  tide, 
they  have  no  navigation  worthy  of  notice. 

But  how  do  streams  like  these  compare  with  the  Mississippi?     More 


15 

than  a  thousand  miles  above  the  mouth  of  that  river,  its  waters  can  float 
a  vessel  of  a  thousand  tons  throughout  the  year.  Above  that  point,  it  re- 
ceives the  Missouri,  a  stream  so  graphically  described  by  Webster, — not  less 
poet  than  statesman, — as  "  coming  down  two  thousand  miles  from  among 
the  savages,  to  imprint  its  barbarian  character  on  the  Mississippi !"  Their 
accumulated  waters  frequently  rise  fifty  feet  above  the  summer  level,  and  hurry 
downward  to  the  Gulf,  where  they  meet  a  languid  ocean  tide  of  eighteen 
inches!  The  average  volume  of  water,  throughout  the  year,  at  the  river's 
mouth,  exceeds  in  cubic  contents,  nearly  three-fold  that  of  the  cataract  of 
Niagara,  and  often  pushes  out  the  ocean  tide  for  many  miles.  Now  is  it 
reasonable,  that  these  English  tide- water  notions  of  navigable  rivers  shall  be 
applied  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  ?  Shall  the  little  rivulets  of  England 
give  law  to  a  Continental  river  like  ours  ?  And  nevertheless  petty  politi- 
cians, small  men  with  smaller  ideas,  do  take  their  law  from  England,  and 
for  years  have  contended,  and  some  even  yet  contend,  that  in  the  eye  of  the 
American  Constitution,  the  Mississippi,  above  the  ocean  high-tide  water  mark 
— if  any  such  mark  there  be, — is  not  a  navigable  river,  nor  subject,  as  such, 
to  the  national  authority. 

Now,  was  not  this  enough  to  make  a  whole  people  go  to  war  ?  But 
they  did  not,  and  again  they  went  to  law.  Once  more  the  authority  of  the  Su- 
preme Judicial  tribunal  of  the  Union  was  invoked — and  during  the  year  1851, 
and  not  until  then,  was  it  finally  established  that  the  narrow  rules,  drawn 
from  the  English  rivers,  were  not  applicable  to  our  navigable  streams.  Cob- 
webs and  abstractions  were  swept  away,  and  navigable  waters  were  decided 
by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  to  be  waters  that  could  be  navigated.  One  Judge 
only  dissented,  and  he  came  from  Virginia — of  course. 

The  tide-water  question  being  thus  disposed  of,  let  us  ask,  do  the  navi- 
gable waters  of  our  great  rivers  and  lakes,  in  fact,  constitute  channels  of 
"  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among  the  several  States  V 

Now,  as  to  foreign  commerce,  it  is  very  difficult  to  say,  not  where  it 
begins,  but  where  it  stops.  Cargoes  may  be  shipped  from  Nova  Scotia  di- 
rectly to  Chicago  or  from  Vera  Cruz  directly  to  Pittsburg.  In  such  case, 
they  pass  through  several  States,  on  their  way  to  the  point  of  destination. — 
Surely  such  cargoes  are  sufficiently  foreign  to  be  furnished  with  harbors,  or 
protected  from  snags  on  their  way ;  and  even  if  the  steamboat  bound  for 
Pittsburg  should  be  stopped  by  its  owner  on  its  way  up  the  Ohio,  and  sent 
into  the  Wabash,  the  character  of  the  commerce  would  remain  unaltered. — 
Or,  to  take  a  case  nearer  home ;  vessels  from  Nova  Scotia  may  constantly  be 
seen  ascending  the  Hudson,  as  far  as  Albany,  and  above  the  ■  Overslaugh" 
upon  which  so  much  constitutional  argument  has  been  expended. 

But  even  if  difficulties  could  be  found,  in  determining  the  precise  point  in 
the  interior,  where  "  commerce  with  foreign  nations  "  ceases  to  retain   that 


16 

character,  there  surely  can  be  none  in  ascertaining  the  meaning  of  the  term 
"  commerce  among  the  States." 

For  here  again  the  Mississippi  is  at  hand.  The  products  of  no  less  than 
sixteen  States  which  now  lie  in  its  valley,  are  daily  intermingled  on  its 
waters.  If  this  is  not  commerce  "  among  "  the  States,  we  may  well  despair 
of  finding  an  instance.  For  let  us  look  a  little  more  minutely  into  the 
interior,  and  see  what  the  people  are  about.  Not  to  mention  their  vast  inter- 
changes,— iron  sent  from  Tennessee  two  thousand  miles  to  Pittsburg,  and 
returned,  manufactured,  two  thousand  miles  more, — or  pine  timber  from 
South-western  New  York,  finding  its  way  to  the  Upper  Mississippi, — is  there 
a  nook  or  corner  in  the  whole  valley  so  remote,  that  merchandise  does  not 
reach  it  from  this  our  own  city  ?  Has  it  a  navigable  stream  so  small,  that  it 
is  not  at  this  moment  bearing  on  its  waters,  the  fabrics  of  the  very  manu- 
facturers and  mechanics  I  see  about  me  ?  And  cannot  we  all  see,  and  feel 
how  vital  is  our  interest  in  the  proper  regulation  and  safety  of  such  a  com- 
merce? Why,  it  is  the  very  life  blood  of  the  system,  flowingthrough  every 
artery  and  vein,  and  invigorating  the  body  politic  to  its  remotest  extremities. 

Nor  is  the  interest  of  such  a  question  confined  to  our  commercial  cities. 
Where  in  all  the  wide-spread  West,  is  there  a  hamlet  so  small,  that  it  does 
not  consume  the  cotton,  the  sugar,  and  the  tobacco  of  the  South — the  sunny 
South— stretching  away  from  the  Chesapeake,  around  Cape  Florida  to  the 
Rio  Grande? — or  the  thousand  and  one  manufactures  of  New-England?  Do 
not  wooden  clocks  from  good  old  Connecticut,  try  the  temper  of  the  woods- 
men of  Minnesota?  Why,  the  very  oysters,  now  eaten  at  the  falls  of  St. 
Anthony,  are  first  carried  from  their  ocean  bed  in  New-Jersey,  through  the 
long  concatenation  of  rivers,  and  railroads,  and  canals,  and  lakes,  and  railroads 
again,  which  stretch  more  than  a  thousand  miles  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Mississippi ;  seasoned,  too,  with  salt,  river-borne  from  the  interior  of  Virginia, 
and  pepper,  ocean-borne  from  the  farthermost  islands  of  Asia.  And  can  we 
not,  from  these  homely  examples,  perceive  the  universality  of  our  inland 
commerce? 

The  statistical  tables  are  beginning  to  furnish  some  little  idea  of  its 
pecuniary  value.  The  admirable  report  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
by  Colonel  Abert,  Chief  of  the  Topographical  Engineers,  made  after  very 
close  and  accurate  investigation,  estimates  the  annual  trade  of  the  Mississippi, 
for  the  year  1850,  at  two  hundred  and  seventy-four  millions  of  dollars,  and 
for  the  year  1860,  at  four  hundred  and  ninety-four  millions.  But  what  may 
we  not  expect,  before  the  present  generation  shall  pass  away?  Why,  there 
are  men  now  before  me,  who  will  see  the  annual  movement  on  the  Missis- 
sippi and  its  tributaries  numbered,  not  by  hundreds  of  millions,  as  at  present, 
but  by  thousands  of  millions.  And  is  not  this  "commerce  among  the 
States!"     Is  not  a  commercial  movement  like  this, — a  labor-saving  machine 


17 

working  on  a  scale  so  vast — a  God-given  stream,  thus  developing,  at  every 
moment,  elements  of  national  strength  and  prosperity  so  gigantic,  as  well 
worthy  the  attention  of  our  Government,  as  the  barren  and  worthless  abstrac- 
tions, by  which  political  fanatics  seek  to  paralyze  its  powers  ? 

The  annual  losses  of  boats  and  their  cargoes,  on  the  waters  of  the  Missis- 
sippi,  by  "  snags,"  sandbars,  and  similar  obstructions,  was  estimated  in  the 
year  1846,  by  a  Committee  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  upon  authen- 
tic data,  to  have  been  $2,601,200,  and  have  doubtless  kept  pace  since  that 
time  with  the  increase  of  the  river  commerce.  We  insist  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Union  is  bound  to  exert  every  legitimate  power  it  possesses,  to 
prevent  losses  like  these. 

At  the  time  of  forming  the  Constitution,  the  common  right  of  all  the 
citizens  of  all  the  States  to  navigate  the  Mississippi  and  the  Great  Lakes  was 
emphatically  denominated  a  "  Right  of  the  Union,"  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  right  of  any  separate  State.  We  claim  that  a  right  so  sacred  and 
fundamental,  was  accompanied  by  a  duty  equally  sacred  and  fundamental. 
The  States  surrendered  to  the  Union  all  revenue  derived  from  commerce,  and 
thus  parted  with  the  very  means  of  facilitating  the  business,  which  produced 
that  revenue.  They  parted  too  with  the  control  of  all  the  navigable  waters, 
which  furnished  the  channels  for  that  commerce.  The  doctrine  on  this  sub- 
ject has  been  so  clearly  stated  by  an  eminent  fellow-laborer  in  our  cause,* 
that  I  beg  to  quote  his  words :  "  The  States,"  said  he,  "  could  never  have 
intended  to  deliver  themselves  up  to  the  care  of  the  Federal  Government, 
stripped  of  the  means  of  securing  the  first  elements  of  their  prosperity,  and 
thus  manacled  and  fettered,  without  an  equivalent.  And  what  was  that 
equivalent  ?  The  only  one  which  the  case  admitted — the  substitution  of  the 
Federal  Government  for  the  exercise  of  the  powers,  and  the  performance  of 
those  correlative  duties,  which  the  exigencies  of  the  confederacy  forbade  to 
the  States.  In  the  very  nature  of  things,  the  Federal  Government  took  the 
place  and  received  the  powers,  and  thereby  assumed  those  duties  of  the 
States  respectively,  which  they  could  not  separately  exercise,  consistent  with 
the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  whole.  This  was  the  great  compromise  of 
the  Constitution." 

The  neglect  of  the  Government  to  discharge  the  duty  so  plainly  devolving 
upon  it,  is  the  more  inexcusable,  when  we  reflect  how  well  it  can  afford  to 
take  care  of  the  navigable  waters  committed  to  its  charge.  It  took  these  great 
channels  of  intercourse,  expressly  subject  to  the  burthens  which  Nature  had 
imposed  upon  them — burthens  bearing  no  sort  of  proportion  to  the  benefits 
received.  The  whole  sum  hitherto  expended  on  the  Mississippi,  and  all  its  great 
tributaries — the  Missouri,  the  Arkansas,  the  Red,  the  Cumberland,  and  the 

*  John  C.  Spencer. 


18 

Ohio  Rivers — is  less  than  three  millions  of  dollars;  and  shall  we  begrudge 
that  sum  for  a  commerce  counted  by  hundreds  of  millions  ? 

It  is  the  very  magnitude  of  those  streams  which  produces  effects, 
which  call  for  corresponding  energy  to  counteract.  It  is  their  office  to  carry- 
off  the  wash  of  more  than  half  a  continent — in  doing  which  they  sweep  along  not 
only  the  sands  of  the  wide-spread  plains,  but  immense  masses  of  trees,  which 
they  uproot  in  their  turbulent  career,  and  strew  along  their  way.  Their 
channels,  of  course,  become  endangered,  or,  in  the  case  of  the  "  raft "  of  the 
Red  River,  obstructed  altogether. 

Now,  we  admit  it  to  be  no  child's  play  to  "  curb  the  licentiousness  of 
nature"  when  operating  on  a  scale  like  this;  but  we  claim  that  a  Nation  has 
been  raised  up  by  Providence  strong  enough  to  do  it.  The  great  Napoleon 
was  once  master  of  the  largest  portion  of  the  valley  drained  by  the  Missis- 
sippi. Think  you,  if  he  had  retained  his  portion  he  would  not  have  swept 
from  the  channel  every  obstacle  to  its  perfect  navigation?  How  long  would 
he  have  permitted  sand  bars  and  snags  to  disgrace  the  imperial  river? 

My  friends,  it  is  unbecoming  the  dignity  of  the  American  people,  to  permit 
this  great  national  nuisance  to  continue.  No  other  civilized  nation,  ancient  or 
modern,"  known  to  mankind,  has  thus  disgraced  itself.  Why,  if  we  look  back 
two  thousand  years  ago,  we  find  that  the  very  first  efforts  of  the  great 
Alexander  of  Macedon,  in  pouring  Greek  civilization  into  the  valley  of  the 
Euphrates,  were  directed  to  the  care  and  improvement  of  its  navigation.  Russia 
in  these  modern  days  most  sedulously  guards  its  rivers,  and  removes  every 
obstruction  from  their  icy  currents.  Several  European  monarchs  unite,  to 
keep  the  Rhine  in  navigable  condition.  Augustus,  the  master  of  the  Roman 
world,  deemed  it  his  highest  office  to  restrain  the  inundations  of  the  Tiber. 
Controlled  by  his  vigorous  arm,  that  angry  stream, 

"Doctus  iter  melius," 

was  taught  to  mend  its  ways.  And  cannot  the  whole  American  Union  teach 
better  manners  to  the  Mississippi,  and  even  to  the  "barbarian"  Missouri? 
Republicans  of  America,  Sovereigns  of  the  New  World — let  us  stand  up  to  our 
work,  and  not  allow  empires  or  monarchies,  old  or  young,  to  outdo  us  ! 

And  now  we  must  enter  upon  an  inquiry  of  some  perplexity,  for  we  must 
discover,  if  possible,  by  what  strange  infatuation,  the  Government  of  the 
Union  could  have  been  induced  to  abandon  or  neglect  a  duty  so  honorable,  so 
important,  and  so  imperative, — and  we  must  wander  far  away  from  our  broad 
lands  and  waters,  into  the  dreary  regions  and  among  the  dreamy  shadows  of 
political  abstraction. 

These  singular  creations  of  the  human  brain  would  seem  at  first  to  be 
harmless — airy  nothings — hardly  deserving  a  local  habitation  or  a  name.  And 
yet  we  shall  find  that,  shadows  as  they  are,  they  have  for  many  years  exerted, 


19 

and  still  exert,  a  baneful  interest  over  all  the  substantial  interests  of  the 
American  people,  and  in  the  hands  of  political  jugglers  have  frightened  the 
Government  from  its  propriety,  and  almost  stolen  away  the  senses  of  the 
nation. 

Before  attempting  to  describe  them,  let  us  remark,  for  the  fact  is  im- 
portant, that  none  of  them  ever  disturbed  the  administration  of  President 
Jefferson.  So  far  from  that,  he  fully  carried  out  the  practical  policy  which 
President  Washington  had  commenced,  of  regulating  commerce  by  light- 
houses and  other  facilities  required  for  its  safety  and  convenience — and 
superadded  to  that  policy,  as  we  have  seen,  the  purchase  of  the  port  of  New 
Orleans,  and  the  territory  of  Louisiana. 

Nor  did  Mr.  Jefferson  withhold  similar  facilities  on  the  land,  for  in  1806 
he  commenced  the  Cumberland  Road,  to  stretch  from  the  Potomac  through 
the  territory  of  six  of  the  States  to  the  Mississippi — a  work  which,  we  may 
add,  was  continued  under  every  succeeding  administration  until  1838,  when, 
after  an  expenditure  of  nearly  six  millions,  it  came  to  its  end  under  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Mr.  Van  Buren. 

In  addition  to  these  facilities  within  the  jurisdictional  limits  of  the  United 
States,  Mr.  Jefferson  commenced  the  survey  of  the  Coast,  which  is  even  yet 
in  progress  :  and  that,  too,  for  the  express  purpose,  as  avowed  by  the  act  of 
1807,  of  making  discoveries  which  might  "be  specially  subservient  to  the 
commercial  interests  of  the  United  States !"  That  act  requires  the  survey  to 
include  not  only  "  all  the  islands  and  shoals  within  twenty  leagues  of  the 
shores  of  the  United  States,"  but  also  the  soundings  and  currents  out  to  the 
Gulf  Stream — the  great  Ocean  River,  distant  more  than  five  hundred  miles 
from  the  Coast. 

Let  no  one,  therefore,  do  Mr.  Jefferson  the  injustice  to  believe,  that  he 
ever  for  a  moment  hesitated  to  exercise  the  power  to  regulate  commerce,  by 
affording  it  all  needful  physical  facilities.  It  seems,  however,  that  a  discovery 
has  been  made  by  some  of  his  pretended  followers — who  claim,  par  excellence,  to 
be  his  most  faithful  disciples — that  in  after  life,  he  expressed  opinions  at  vari- 
ance with  these  public  official  acts.  To  prove  this,  they  produce  extracts 
from  his  writings,  purporting  to  contain  certain  phrases,  which  they  now  pro- 
claim aloud,  as  the  fundamental  dogma  of  Jeffersonian  Democracy.  They  are 
as  follows : 

"  The  world  is  governed  too  much.  Government  must  protect  every  man 
in  his  life,  liberty,  and  property,  and  there  stop." 

Now,  whether  Mr.  Jefferson  ever  used  these  words  in  their  unrestricted 
sense,  or  whether  he  explained  or  modified  them  by  other  expressions,  we 
know  not;  but  if  he  did  so  use  them,  we  can  only  claim  to  gather  his  opinions 
from  his  acts  and  not  his  language. 

The  time  would  not  suffice  to  point  out  a  tithe  of  the  mischiefs  such  a  doc- 


20 

trine  would  inflict  upon  all  the  most  valuable  institutions  of  human  society — 
its  public  schools — its  public  charities — its  great  institutions  of  learning — its 
public  works  of  every  description,  in  fact  everything  dear  to  civilization  and 
humanity. 

We  have,  however,  seen  but  too  plainly  here  in  the  North,  the  effects  of 
this  doctrine,  in  the  hands  of  office-seeking  demagogues,  who  parade  it  as  the 
test  of  party  faith.  In  New  Hampshire  in  particular — it  arrested  or  greatly 
retarded  for  several  years,  the  progress  of  all  public  improvement — forbidding 
even  the  incorporation  of  companies  with  adequate  powers.  In  our  own  New 
York,  political  leaders  found  in  it  the  key  to  political  power,  which  enabled 
them  with  ruthless  hand,  not  only  to  arrest  the  enlargement  of  our  great  ar- 
tificial channel  of  commerce — the  pride  and  glory  of  the  State — but  to  bind 
down  the  people  by  a  Constitution  which,  if  left  unaltered,  will  postpone  the 
work  for  a  whole  generation.  Nay,  more — it  has  enabled  those  leaders,  aided 
by  kindred  spirits  in  the  States  around  the  lakes,  to  propagate  similar  consti- 
tutions through  all  that  region,  virtually  disabling  their  State  authorities  from 
expending  a  dollar  on  public  works.  And  then,  after  doing  all  this  and  after 
denying  the  power  of  the  Nation  to  build  harbors  for  the  protection  of  com- 
merce, they  call  in  cruel  mockery,  upon  the  very  States  they  have  thus  mana- 
cled, to  construct  the  works  ! 

And  what  do  we  see  1  The  State  of  Michigan,  permitted  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  take  exclusive  possession  of  the  outlet  of  Lake  Superior,  and  improve 
the  Sault  St.  Marie,  but  weighed  down  by  these  chains,  unable  to  stir  an  inch  ! 

But  if  such  a  dogma  has  been  mischievous  in  the  separate  States,  how 
much  more  disastrous  would  be  its  effects,  if  applied  to  the  Union  !  If  indeed 
it  be  true  that  Government,  after  protecting  every  man  in  his  life,  liberty,  and 
property,  must  there  stop,  why  should  we  regulate  commerce  at  all — still  less 
by  physical  means  ? 

But  leaving  this,  the  broadest  of  all  political  abstractions,  we  come  down  to 
a  class,  which  merely  denies  to  the  National  Government  all  practical  power 
over  the  regulation  of  commerce. 

And  here  we  encounter  one  general  abstraction,  which  seems  to  cover  all 
this  particular  class.  It  is  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  not 
a  Union,  but  only  a  Confederacy  ;  in  a  word,  that  we  are  not  a  Nation,  but 
merely  a  League  of  States  absolutely  sovereign;  that  the  nation  acts  only  on 
a  grander  scale,  as  common  attorney  for  those  sovereign  States — each  of 
which  may  judge  of  the  extent  of  the  powers  granted — that  the  powers  thus 
temporarily  delegated  to  this  "  Confederacy  "  are  strictly  limited,  and  must  be 
strictly  construed ;  that  the  tribunals  expressly  provided  by  the  Constitution 
have  no  authority  to  decide  upon  the  extent  of  such  limitation,  but  that  the 
President,  especially  if  elected  by  politicians  holding  these  doctrines,  has  full 
power  to  narrow  the  exercise  of  the  powers  by  Congress,  to  suit  his  own  pe- 
culiar tenets. 


21 

And  such  has  been  the  actual  result:  The  American  people  by  some 
magic  have  been  induced  to  elect  a  succession  of  Presidents  wedded  to  this 
particular  political  faith,  and  our  great  navigable  waters  have  severely  felt  the 
results. 

It  is  therefore  necessary  for  us,  if  possible,  to  understand  the  nature  of 
this  particular  class  of  abstractions.  We  shall  find  them  somewhat  difficult 
to  define  or  comprehend,  for  they  have  every  possible  variety  of  form,  color 
and  extent.  We  may,  however,  succeed  in  stating  some  of  them,  and  espe- 
cially those  which  have  done  most  harm  to  the  country.  They  seem  to  be 
these : 

1.  That  the  power  to  regulate  commerce,  is  merely  the  abstract  power  to 
regulate  the  duties  to  be  imposed  upon  it — and  to  prohibit  the  States  from  im- 
posing such  duties. 

2.  That  if  the  power  exists  at  all  to  afford  any  physical  facilities,  it  is  limi- 
ted to  high-tide  water  mark. 

3.  That  rivers  cannot  be  improved  above  the  "  ports  of  entry"  established 
by  Congress. 

4.  That  a  river  cannot  be  improved,  if  lying  wholly  within  a  State. 

5.  That  it  is  not  enough  for  a  river  to  separate  two  States,  but  it  must 
adjoin  or  pass  through  three  at  least. 

6.  That  harbors  constructed  by  the  Government,  must  be  harbors  for  shel- 
ter and  not  for  commerce. 

7.  That  if  it  is  lawful  at  all  to  deepen  our  navigable  waters,  it  is  not  law- 
ful to  place  in  them  piers  or  any  similar  structures,  as  that  would  encroach  on 
the  territorial  jurisdiction  of  a  State  and  trespass  on  its  "sovereignty." 

8.  That  it  is  not  lawful  to  remove  obstructions  in  our  navigable  waters, 
but  that  it  is  lawful  to  erect  beacons  on  those  obstructions. 

The  last  of  this  brilliant  list,  came  into  the  political  world  during  the  ad- 
ministration of  President  Polk.  Congress  had  ordered  a  beacon  to  be  placed 
on  a  rock,  in  the  harbor  of  New  Haven.  The  engineer  reported  that  the  cost 
of  removing  the  rock,  would  be  less  than  the  cost  of  erecting  the  beacon.  But 
the  President  was  firm.  A  great  party  doctrine  was  involved,  and  the  rock 
remains  to  uphold  the  beacon — a  naked  pole  with  an  empty  barrel  at  its  head 
— a  suitable  type  of  the  whole  class  of  constitutional  abstractions. 

It  is  important  also  to  understand  the  historical  progress  of  these  abstrac- 
tions, in  enfeebling  the  authority  of  the  nation.  They  did  not  make  their  ap- 
pearance to  any  extreme  extent,  until  near  the  close  of  the  administration  of 
General  Jackson.  On  the  contrary,  during  the  eight  years  in  which  that  emi- 
nent man  controlled  the  affairs  of  the  Government,  its  nationality  was  not  ma- 
terially impaired. 

The  sums  expended  during  that  time  upon  rivers  and  harbors,  including 


22 

the  Cumberland  road,  and  some  other  roads  of  minor  extent,  was  between  ten 
and  eleven  millions  of  dollars. 

During  his  time,  however,  an  opinion  began  to  gain  ground,  that  though  it 
might  be  constitutional,  it  was  not  expedient  for  the  national  Government  to 
construct  turnpike  roads  within  the  limits  of  the  States ;  but  that  works  of 
that  description,  might  better  be  left  to  the  States,  or  to  individuals  incorpo- 
rated by  their  authority.  Gen.  Jackson  therefore  vetoed  a  bill,  for  building  a 
turnpike  from  Maysville  into  the  interior  of  Kentucky.  He  went  a  step 
further,  and  vetoed  a  bill  for  the  improvement  of  the  Wabash  river,  which  be- 
ing above  any  "  port  of  entry,"  it  was  in  his  judgment,  a  local  work. 

Mr.  Van  Buren,  who  succeeded  him  in  1837,  followed  his  footsteps  so  far 
only  as  to  encourage  the  theories  of  the  abstractionists;  and  the  vagaries 
in  which  they  indulged  as  to  the  legitimate  power  of  the  Government,  soon 
gained  a  stronger  foothold. 

The  improvements  of  rivers  and  harbors  which  had  been  commenced  by 
Gen.  Jackson,  Mr.  Van  Buren  after  a  short  time  allowed  to  languish,  and 
they  finally  came  to  an  end,  before  the  close  of  his  Presidential  term  in  1841. 
But  a  valuable  discovery  was  then  made  in  party  politics,  for  it  was  then  well 
ascertained,  that  the  true  mode  for  Northern  men  to  get  the  Southern 
votes  necessary  for  attaining  or  retaining  the  Presidential  chair  was,  reso- 
lutely to  uphold  the  abstractions  we  have  been  considering. 

The  political  party  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  controlled  both  branches  of  Con. 
gress,  and  they  adjourned  without  making  any  appropriations  for  rivers  and 
harbors.  But  this  was  not  quite  enough.  The  South  might  fear  that  the 
works  would  be  resumed  at  a  subsequent  session,  and  it  was  therefore  neces- 
sary to  offer  up  before  the  whole  nation,  some  open  and  notorious  sacrifice, 
which  should  stand  as  an  unmistakeable  pledge  of  political  faith,  and  satisfy 
the  whole  American  people,  that  every  thought  or  hope  of  improving  our 
navigable  waters  by  national  authority  was  permanently  abandoned. 

The  Government  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  accordingly  issued  orders,  under 
which  all  the  boats,  machinery,  and  other  apparatus  which  had  been  purchased 
at  great  expense  for  the  construction  of  harbors  on  the  Lakes,  were  publicly 
sold  at  auction. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  was  succeeded  by  John  Tyler,  in  whose  time  abstrac- 
tionism took  a  more  distinct  and  malignant  type,  accompanied  however,  by 
some  strange  phenomena.  A  bill  providing,  among  other  things,  for  the  im- 
provement of  certain  harbors  on  the  Atlantic,  including  the  Delaware  Break- 
water, the  improvement  of  the  Hudson  River  near  Albany,  and  the  James 
River  at  Richmond,  was  vetoed  by  President  Tyler  on  the  ground,  that  each 
State  possessed  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  all  streams  and  water  courses 
within  its  territorial  limits ; — and  nevertheless  he  signed  at  the  same  time,  ano- 
ther bill  for  improving  the  Ohio  river  and  numerous  harbors  on  the  Western 


Lakes,  lying  within  the  mouths  of  rivers,  and  for  all  constitutional  purposes 
as  much  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  States,  as  the  James  river  or  the  Hud- 
son. The  annual  commerce,  foreign  and  domestic,  then  existing  on  the  Hud- 
son river,  ^nd  embarrassed  by  the  obstructions  which  this  vetoed  bill  might 
have  removed,  exceeded  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars.  A  very 
remarkable  reason  was  also  given  in  the  veto  message,  which  added  another 
to  the  abstractions  above  enumerated,  and  it  was  that  the  improvement  of  the 
James  river  at  Richmond,  by  increasing  the  trade  of  that  city,  would  corre- 
spondingly lessen  that  of  Petersburgh !  a  principle  which,  if  adopted,  would 
stop  every  species  of  improvement,  and  compel  us  to  leave  the  world  in  a 
state  of  nature. 

In  1845,  James  K.  Polk  succeeded  Mr.  Tyler.  Coming  from  Tennes- 
see, it  was  hoped  that  he  would  carry  into  the  Government  somewhat  of  the 
nationality  of  General  Jackson.  But  Mr.  Polk  exceeded  all  his  predecessors, 
in  the  narrowness  and  severity  of  his  theories.  He  not  only  vetoed  the  bills 
for  continuing  the  harbors  which  had  been  commenced  by  General  Jackson, 
but  he  flatly  denied  all  authority  whatever  in  the  national  Government  to  ex- 
pend money  for  any  such  objects — denouncing  the  whole  as  utterly  unconsti- 
tutional. 

The  reasons  he  gave  would  equally  include  light  houses  and  beacons.  To 
be  consistent,  he  should  have  vetoed  them  also,  but  they  were  allowed  to 
stand, — at  least  for  a  time. 

Mr.  Polk  did  what  was  much  worse.  He  brought  forward  a  plan  for  the 
virtual  division  and  dismemberment  of  all  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Union — 
the  Mississippi,  the  Lakes,  and  all — and  the  abandonment  of  all  authority  to 
regulate  their  improvement  by  the  national  Government.  The  plan  was  dis- 
tinctly proposed  in  an  elaborate  message,  which  recommended  that  Congress 
should  at  once  give  its  consent  in  advance,  that  each  State  should  levy  tonnage 
duties  on  all  vessels  entering  the  harbors  within  its  limits — to  be  applied  to 
the  improvement  of  the  rivers  and  harbors  within  such  limits,  exclusively  by 
the  State,  and  in  such  manner  as  its  local  authorities  should  see  fit — thus  re- 
producing, at  a  stroke,  the  evils  of  the  old  Confederation — shivering  to  atoms 
the  fabric  which  the  Constitution  intended  to  rear,  and  destroying  those  two 
great  cardinal  and  prominent  features — the  unity  and  the  freedom  of  our  navi- 
gable waters — which  distinguish  America  from  all  the  other  nations  of  the 
world. 

On  the  5th  of  July,  1847,  a  Convention  of  Delegates — to  consider  the 
condition  of  our  navigable  waters — from  eighteen  of  the  States,  assembled 
at  Chicago — a  large  commercial  city  in  the  heart  of  the  continent,  near  the 
Southern  extremity  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  preeminently  a  fitting  place  for 
such  an  assemblage.  General  Cass,  in  the  speech  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
terms  it,  sneeringly,  a  "  renowned  Convocation."    It  was  indeed  renowned, 


24 

as  well  in  numbers  as  in  weight  of  character  and  patriotic  devotion  to  the 
country  and  its  best  interests,  and,  in  all  these  respects,  and  above  all,  in 
the  decent  decorum  of  its  proceedings,  will  stand  a  comparison  with  any 
public  body  ever  assembled  in  America,  not  excepting  Congress  itself. 

The  interests  of  the  country  were  greatly  suffering.  Our  lakes  and  rivers 
were  strewed  with  wrecks,  which  the  cruel  neglect  of  the  Government  had 
caused — and  the  sufferers  spake  out  plainly.  The  place  of  meeting  was 
immediately  opposite  the  great  peninsula  of  Michigan — a  State  of  large 
and  increasing  commerce,  and  greatly  needing  safe  and  commodious  harbors ; 
and  a  State  moreover,  which  had  carried  forward  General  Cass  to  wealth  and 
greatness.  He  was  respectfully  invited  to  attend  this  Convention,  but "  cir- 
cumstances "  prevented  him.  What  those  circumstances  were,  were  never 
publicly  known,  until  his  recent  speech  in  the  Senate,  which  distinctly  avows, 
that  he  abstained  from  attending,  because  he  "  was  satisfied  that  it  was  got 
up  for  the  purpose  of  injuring  Mr.  Polk,  and  through  him  the  Democratic 
party" 

I  have  no  wish  to  comment  upon  this  avowal,  further  than  to  observe  that 
it  establishes  two  important  facts  on  the  very  best  authority,  the  first  of  which 
is,  that  "  the  Democratic  party  "  are  thus  distinctly  identified  with  Mr.  Polk,  as 
enemies  to  the  improvements  in  question ; — and  the  second,  that  the  power  of 
the  American  President  has  indeed  become  dangerous,  when  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States,  in  a  case  where  the  interests  of  his  State  are  vitally  concerned, 
does  not  dare  openly  to  disagree  with  the  Executive,  or  take  any  efficient 
means  to  resist  the  abuse  of  his  authority.  It  also  shows  the  utter  folly  ot 
electing  to  that  office  either  an  abstractionist  or  an  ally  of  abstractionists, 
under  the  vain  expectation  that  Congress  will  be  able  to  restrain  him  from  the 
tyrannical  exercise  of  the  veto  power,  with  which  the  Constitution  has 
clothed  him.  Experience  has  taught  us  too  well,  that  in  the  power  of  the 
American  President  to  resist  all  measures  for  the  improvement  of  navigable 
waters,  he  is  to  all  intents  as  much  an  autocrat  as  the  Czar  of  Russia.  And 
shall  we,  with  our  eyes  open,  enter  upon  another  dynasty  of  misrule  and 
folly? 

The  Chicago  Convention  appointed  a  Committee  of  two  from  each  of  the 
States  represented  in  the  Convention,  to  collect  and  embody  information  as 
to  the  trade  of  the  Western  waters,  and  the  necessity  for  its  more  efficient 
protection,  with  a  proper  memorial,  to  be  presented  to  Congress.  The  duty 
of  preparing  that  important  paper,  vindicating  the  constitutional  authority  of 
the  nation  and  the  necessity  for  its  exercise,  was  committed  to  John  C. 
Spencer,  of  New  York  ;  and  it  is  enough  to  say  that  his  great  powers  were 
thrown  wholly  into  the  work.  The  masterly  exposition  which  he  then  made, 
not  only  of  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  improve  our  Rivers  and  Harbors, 
but  of  the  utter  fallacy,  folly,  and  unconstitutionality  of  the  proposed  plan  of 


25 

State  tonnage  duties,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  State  papers  ever  produced 
in  this  country.     Let  our  opponents  answer  it,  if  they  can. 

The  scheme  of  State  tonnage  duties  did  not,  after  all,  originate  with  Mr. 
Polk.  The  true  author  was  John  C.  Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina,  who 
saw  in  it  a  plan  peculiarly  harmonizing  with  his  views  of  State  sovereignty, 
and  well  calculated  to  enfeeble  the  national  authority.  Shortly  after  the 
veto  of  Mr.  Polk,  Mr.  Rhett,  of  S.  C,  introduced  a  bill  into  the  House  of  Re- 
presentatives, giving  the  consent  of  Congress  to  the  local  tonnage  duties  to 
be  levied  by  the  States.  It  was  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Commerce,  of 
which  Washington  Hunt,  the  present  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
was  Chairman.  Earnest  efforts  were  used  by  Mr.  Rhett,  to  point  out  to 
Governor  Hunt,  the  peculiar  advantages  which  New  York  would  derive  in 
levying  local  duties,  from  her  geographical  position,  in  holding  the  very  gates 
of  commerce,  both  on  the  Atlantic  and  the  Lakes.  But  Washington  Hunt 
was  a  National  Whig,  and  loyal  to  the  Constitution.  It  was  enough  for  him,  as 
it  is  for  all  good  Whigs,  that  New  York  should  be  part  of  one  great  Republic. 
He  scorned  to  seek,  and  would  not  accept  advantages  for  his  State  by  a  meas- 
ure that  would  weaken  the  Union ;  but  presented  to  the  House  a  report  con- 
demning the  plan  in  the  strongest  terms.  It  took  a  broad  and  comprehensive 
view  of  our  commerce,  foreign  and  domestic,  and  the  just  right  of  every  por- 
tion of  the  Union  to  be  fairly  protected,  and  placed  on  a  proper  national  basis 
the  duty  which  the  government  had  so  long  neglected.  It  also  reprobated 
the  arbitrary  veto,  by  which  the  President  had  defeated  the  Harbor  Bill.  The 
report  was  accompanied  by  four  separate  resolutions,  upon  which  a  vote  was 
obtained  in  July,  1848,  after  a  desperate  resistance  by  the  friends  of  the  Exe- 
cutive. 

The  first  resolution,  asserting  the  power  of  the  National  Government  to 
improve  Rivers  and  Harbors,  was  passed  by  a  vote  of  128  to  59. 

The  second,  asserting  the  expediency  of  exercising  that  power,  was  passed 
Pya  vote  of  112  to  53. 

The  third,  disapproving  the  veto  of  the  President,  was  passed  by  91  to  71. 

And  the  fourth,  condemning  the  proposed  plan  of  State  tonnage  duties,  was 
passed  by  109  to  59. 

It  not  being  practicable  to  obtain  two-thirds  of  the  House  to  pass  the 
Harbor  Bill  notwithstanding  the  veto,  the  bill  failed,  and  our  Lakes  and  Rivers 
were  left  to  their  fate. 

In  November  of  that  year,  Zachary  Taylor  was  chosen  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  it  was  really  believed  to  be  impossible  that  this  important  na- 
tional interest  could  be  longer  neglected.  But  such  was  the  violence  of  party,  or 
so  great  the  fear  of  offending  Southern  abstractionists,  that  nearly  four  years 
elapsed  before  the  Whigs  could  succeed  in  passing  a  River  and  Harbor  Bill. 
Their  opponents  held  majorities  in  both  Houses,  and  steadily  refused  to  pass 


26 

it,  until  late  in  the  summer  of  the  present  year,  when  the  near  approach  of 
the  Presidential  election,  and  the  apprehension  of  losing  the  votes  of  the 
States  interested  in  internal  navigation,  operated  to  convince  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  the  expediency  of  voting  for  the  bill.  It  is  almost  needless  to  say 
that  Millard  Fillmore,  the  Whig  President,  signed  it  without  a  moment's 
hesitation. 

It  must  be  obvious  that  this  revival  of  the  River  and  Harbor  policy  is  only 
temporary,  and  will  again  be  abandoned  unless  the  people  can  succeed  at  the 
approaching  election  in  placing  a  Whig  in  the  Presidential  chair.  We  have 
seen  the  baleful  effects,  of  placing  in  that  position  an  abstractionist,  or 
Northern  ally  of  abstractionists.  What  can  we  possibly  expect  if  we  elect 
any  but  a  Whig?  It  is  already  distinctly  announced  by  the  political  press  of 
Virginia — which  has  the  merit,  at  least,  of  openness  and  candor — that  General 
Pierce,  if  elected,  will  abandon  the  policy  just  renewed.  Now  can  we,  will 
we  consent  that  the  protecting  arm  of  the  Government  shall  again  be  par- 
alyzed ? 

But  this  is  not  all — for  there  is  a  feature  in  the  approaching  contest,  which 
gives  it  a  much  higher  and  more  enduring  interest.  The  success  of  our  oppon- 
ents will  permanently  fasten  upon  the  nation  a  plan  of  local  tonnage  duties, 
even  more  mischievous  and  destructive  than  that  which  Mr.  Polk  proposed. 

During  the  recent  struggle  to  pass  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  through  the 
Senate,  Mr.  Douglas  of  Illinois,  offered  as  a  substitute,  an  amendment,  giving 
the  consent  of  Congress  to  the  levy  of  local  tonnage  duties,  not  only  by  each 
of  the  separate  States,  but  even  by  the  authorities  "  of  any  city  or  town,''1  on 
the  whole  extent  of  the  coasts  of  the  Atlantic,  the  Pacific,  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
and  all  the  Lakes,  and  further  allowing  any  of  the  States,  either  singly  or  by 
compact  among  themselves,  to  levy  similar  duties  on  all  the  navigable  rivers 
of  the  Union,  within  their  respective  limits.  The  plan  of  President  Polk  di- 
vided the  national  waters  of  the  Union,  into  only  thirty-one  separate  portions 
— while  that  of  Senator  Douglas  subdivides  them  into  as  many  parts,  as 
there  are  towns  on  the  whole  ocean  and  lake  coasts.  Can  it  need  any  com- 
ment ?  Where  could  it  find  a  parallel  ?  In  its  utterly  denationalizing  effects, 
its  daily  and  hourly  checks,  delays,  exactions,  and  imposition,  it  would  exceed 
even  the  subdivision  of  the  waters  of  Europe,  among  the  crowds  of  petty 
States  and  feudal  barons,  after  the  dismemberment  of  the  Roman  Empire; 
and  America  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  would  enjoy  the  singu- 
lar privilege  of  inverting  the  whole  course  of  modern  civilization,  and  return- 
ing to  the  barbarism  of  the  dark  ages.  Our  coasts  and  rivers  would  be  lined 
with  collectors,  demanding  tribute.  Vessels  from  Pittsburg  to  New  Orleans 
would  be  stopped  at  least  nine  times  on  their  voyage.  Pretended  improve- 
ments would  be  made  or  attempted  wholly  unsuited  to  their  object,  and  other 
improvements  omitted  that  commerce  demanded.    Agricultural  States  would 


27 

hesitate  or  refuse  to  execute  the  works,  which  their  more  commercial  neigh- 
bors required.  The  younger  or  smaller  States  would  shrink  from  the  burthen, 
while  the  States  around  the  Lakes,  manacled  by  their  so-called  "  democratic  " 
Constitutions  would  be  totally  disabled.  States  making  trifling  improvements 
would  exact  the  same  tribute,  as  those  which  were  burthened  with  the  most 
costly.  Nothing  like  uniformity  of  plan  would  be  practicable,  while  the  due 
application  of  the  duties  would  be  a  subject  of  interminable  discussion  and 
strife.  Truly  was  it  said  by  the  Chicago  memorial,  that  "if  the  wit  of  man 
were  taxed  to  devise  a  scheme  utterly  destructive  of  all  trade,  commerce,  and 
navigation  upon  our  waters,  a  better  one  for  the  purpose  than  this,  of  artifi- 
cially obstructing  them  by  hosts  of  collectors  of  tonnage  duties  imposed  by 
local  legislation  could  not  be  framed.'' 

But  in  addition  to  all  this,  the  measure  would  be  utterly  unconstitutional,  in 
violating  the  fundamental  provision  of  the  great  Ordinance  of  1787,  the  obliga- 
tion of  which  was  assumed  by  the  Constitution,  and  which  declared  the  Mis- 
sissippi, the  St.  Lawrence,  and  all  their  tributaries,  to  be  "  common  highways, 
and  for  ever  FREE,ivithout  any  tax,  impost,  or  duty  therefor."  Nor  would  it  stop 
even  here.  It  would  come  in  direct  conflict  with  the  fundamental  conditions 
contained  in  the  five  several  acts  admitting  into  the  Union  the  States  of  Louis- 
iana, Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin,  each  of  which  came  into  the 
Union  under  the  express  condition,  that  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries 
should  remain  forever  free,  without  any  tax,  duty,  or  impost  to  be  levied  by 
said  Slates. 

It  is  true  that  the  proposed  amendment  of  Mr.  Douglas  was  not  adopted. 
The  Presidential  election  wTastoo  near  at  hand — but  he  has  given  notice,  that 
he  will  renew  it  at  the  next  session  of  Congress.  If  any  think  it  impossible 
that  such  a  measure  can  be  adopted,  let  him  remember  that  although  its  mis- 
chiefs and  absurdities  were  pointed  out  in  the  strongest  manner  by  Mr.  Tru- 
man Smith,  one  of  the  Whig  Senators  from  Connecticut— whose  manly 
and  vigorous  speech  on  that  occasion,  deserves  the  thanks  of  every  man  engag- 
ed in  inland  commerce,— it  nevertheless  received  the  votes  of  seventeen  Sena- 
tors, among  whom  stands  conspicuous  Mr.  William  R.  King,  of  Alabama, 
now  nominated  by  our  opponents  for  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  and 
presented  to  the  people  on  the  same  ticket  with  General  Pierce.  Can  any 
one  doubt  the  political  character  Of  their  administration  should  they  be  elect- 
ed? or  the  results  which  will  follow  to  our  navigable  waters? 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  bring  down  the  history  of  this  question  to  the 
present  point,  in  order  to  ascertain  what  is  the  present  attitude  of  the  two  con- 
tending parties.  Our  opponents  with  characteristic  adroitness,  have  labored 
to  blind  the  eyes  of  the  country  to  the  true  issue.  The  resolution  adopted 
by  the  Whigs  at  the  Presidential  Convention,  which  nominated  Scott  and 
Graham,  is  open  and  explicit.     It  is  this. 


28 

"The  Constitution  vests  in  Congress  the  power  to  open  and  repair  harbors, 
and  remove  obstacles  from  navigable  rivers ;  and  it  is  expedient  that  Congress 
shall  exercise  that  power  whenever  such  improvements  are  necessary  for  the 
common  defence,  or  for  the  protection  and  facilities  of  commerce  with  foreign 
nations,  or  among  the  States, — such  improvements  being,  in  every  instance, 
national  and  general  in  their  character." 

Now,  how  do  our  opponents  meet  this  resolution  1  I  do  not  ask  how  they 
meet  it  by  acts — for  those  we  see — but  how  do  they  meet  it  by  words?  The 
resolution  passed  by  the  Presidential  Convention  which  nominated  Pierce  and 
King,  is  in  these  words : 

"  The  Constitution  does  not  give  the  power  to  Congress  to  commence  and 
carry  on  a  general  system  of  internal  improvements" 

The  crafty  and  evasive  character  of  the  resolution  is  obvious.  Its  true 
object  is  to  cajole  the  North,  while  it  satisfies  the  South.  On  the  one  hand, 
it  induces  the  North  to  believe  that  the  party  do  not  object  to  works  strictly 
national,  but  only  to  roads,  canals,  and  other  similar  works  strictly  local,  and  to 
a  "  General  System  of  Internal  Improvement"  only  because  it  includes  such  lo- 
cal works — while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  satisfies  the  South  that  the  phrase  "in- 
ternal improvements  "  includes  all  works  of  improvement,  whether  local  or 
national. 

But  the  practical  effect  on  river  and  harbor  improvements  is  precisely  the 
same,  as  if  the  power  to  make  these  works  was  openly  and  distinctly  denied 
by  our  opponents.  This  skillfully-worded  resolution  was  first  introduced  in 
the  Presidential  Convention  of  1840,  which  nominated  Mr.  Van  Buren;  and 
his  followers  have  carefully  stereotyped  and  repeated  it,  at  every  Presidential 
Convention  from  that  time  to  the  present.  Under  its  equivocal  phraseology, 
Mr.  Polk  found  himself  sufficiently  justified  in  his  vetoes,  and  should  General 
Pierce  be  elected,  he  will  undoubtedly  find  it  equally  accommodating. 

Now.,  we  utterly  deny  that  the  Whig  party  contend  for  the  doctrine  that 
Congress  has  power  to  carry  on  a  "  general  system  of  internal  improvement." 
What  they  do  contend  for,  is  precisely  this :  That  Congress  has  power  to  open 
and  repair  harbors,  and  remove  obstacles  from  navigable  rivers. 

In  respect  to  a  "  system  "  we  claim,  that  Congress  may,  or  may  not  pursue 
a  systematic  policy  in  respect  to  rivers  and  harbors,  as  they  may  in  respect  to 
any  other  subject  of  legislation.  Surely,  works  which  are  national  and  consti- 
tutional in  themselves,  do  not  cease  to  be  so,  merely  because  they  may  be  con- 
structed in  a  systematic  manner,  or  on  a  systematic  plan.  The  Chicago 
memorial  meets  this  whole  matter  in  these  few  sentences : 

"  But  we  hear  it  said  that  the  Constitution  does  not  confer  on  Congress 


29 

the  power  to  regulate  commerce,  by  commencing  and  carrying  on  a  general 
system  of  internal  improvement ;  as  if  the  objection  was  not  to  any  particular 
work,  but  to  a  general  system.  We  confess  our  inability  to  perceive  the  force 
of  this  distinction.  If  any  particular  work  can  be  justified  by  the  importance 
of  the  commercial  exigency  which  demands  it,  is  not  the  power  of  Congress  to 
facilitate  commerce  by  any  other  similar  work  admitted  ?  And  if  any  work,  in 
the  judgment  of  Congress,  possesses  the  requisites  to  bring  it  within  the  con- 
stitutional provision,  does  it  cease  to  possess  them  because  the  commercial 
facilities  it  affords,  may  be  augmented  by  its  connection  with  other  kindred 
works  ?  Thus,  the  commercial  cargoes,  which  now  descend  from  Lake  Michi- 
gan to  the  ocean,  in  their  passage  meet  successively,  the  flats  on  Lake  St. 
Clair,  in  the  harbor  of  Buffalo,  and  in  the  overslaugh  of  the  Hudson.  The 
works  needed  to  remove  those  three  separate  impediments,  each  highly  neces- 
sary in  itself,  will  be  still  more  useful  when  all  are  completed,  and  when  con- 
structed, will  naturally  and  necessarily  group  themselves  together,  and  become 
portions  of  a  system.  But  does  this  afford  any  reason,  why  each  particular 
work  should  not  be  constructed?  On  the  contrary,  does  it  not  greatly 
strengthen  the  inducement  for  building  them  all,  and  that  too  on  a  harmonious 
plan,  so  that  each  portion  may  add  to  the  value  of  the  whole?" 

It  is  now  more  than  twenty  years  since  any  one  thought  of  a  general 
system  of  internal  improvement  to  be  prosecuted  by  the  national  government. 
On  the  contrary,  the  separate  States  or  corporations  acting  under  their  autho- 
rity, have  executed  all  works  of  internal  improvement  purely  local.  The 
States  are  overspread  with  a  network  of  railroads  more  than  ten  thousand 
miles  in  extent,  which  have  cost  more  than  three  hundred  millions,  not  to 
mention  the  local  canals,  which  have  cost  nearly  one  hundred  millions  more. 
All  the  States  ask  is,  that  the  national  Government  may  take  care  of  the 
national  waters — that,  while  the  States  are  doing  so  much  for  the  Union,  the 
Union  may  do  a  little  for  itself.  The  total  expenditure  up  to  the  present 
moment,  extending  over  a  period  of  forty  years,  is  only  seventeen  millions  of 
dollars ;  and  yet  attempts  are  made  to  alarm  the  country  with  the  idea,  that 
ruinous  sums  will  be  required.  The  amount  expended  on  the  Mississippi, 
the  Ohio,  and  the  Missouri,  is  less  than  three  millions.  The  Cumberland 
road  cost  about  six  millions,  —  leaving  only  eight  millions,  as  the  sum 
total  expended  by  the  Government  since  its  organization,  upon  other  internal 
improvements  of  every  description.  Of  this  eight  millions,  $5,700,000  were 
expended  upon  harbors  and  breakwaters  on  the  Atlantic  and  the  Lakes,  -and 
$1,300,000  in  improving  navigable  rivers,  such  as  the  Hudson,  the  Cape  Fear, 
and  the  Savannah.  Will  any  one  pretend  that  the  American  Union  cannot 
afford  to  expend  sums  like  these,  upon  objects  like  these? 

Why,  gentlemen,  a  private  company*  a  mere  handful  of  individuals,  in  our 
city,  have  expended   twenty-five  millions  in  building  the  Erie  Railroad,  and 


30 

our  State  another  twenty-five  in  building  and  in  part  enlarging  the  Erie 
Canal, — while  in  Illinois,  a  State  hardly  thirty  years  old,  another  company  is 
expending  twenty  millions  in  a  railroad,  to  connect  Lake  Michigan  with  the 
mouth  of  the  Ohio.  It  is  possible,  that  in  looking  over  the  Union,  we  may 
find  two  isolated  cases  of  canals, — to  wit,  one  at  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio,  and 
the  other  at  the  Sault  St.  Marie,  in  which  the  general  interest  and  the  common 
security  may  require  the  nation  to  execute  and  control  the  work.  But  with 
those  two  exceptions,  I  know  of  no  canal,  or  road,  or  local  work,  of  any  de- 
scription, East  of  the  Mississippi,  which  any  Whig  supposes  should  be  con- 
structed by  the  General  Government.  What  then,  do  our  opponents  mean  by 
their  phrase — "A  general  system  of  Internal  Improvements,"  except  to  deceive 
the  people  ? 

Stripped  of  all  party  disguise,  the  naked  questions  before  the  country  are 
these,  and  only  these : — 

Shall  the  Nation  improve  the  national  navigable  waters,  or  leave  them 
unimproved  ? 

Will  the  Union  preserve  unimpaired  the  unity  and  freedom  of  its  navi- 
gable waters,  secured  by  the  constitution,  or  will  it  surrender  back  those  wa- 
ters to  the  separate  States,  to  be  subjected  to  local  authority  and  local  im- 
positions 1 

It  is  indeed,  matter  of  serious  concern,  that  questions  like  these,  so  vitally 
interwoven  with  our  highest  national  interests,  affecting  so  deeply,  not  only 
our  present  prosperity,  but  the  welfare  of  the  boundless  Future  which  Provi- 
dence has  spread  before  us,  should  depend  upon  the  varying  issues  of  our 
party  conflicts.  But  such,  unhappily,  is  the  fact ;  and  we  cannot,  wisely  or 
safely,  close  our  eyes  upon  the  momentous  responsibilities  which  it  imposes. 

One  word,  and  but  a  word,  in  conclusion,  as  to  party  epithets.  Our  op- 
ponents arrogate  to  themselves  the  exclusive  use  of  the  term  "  democracy." 
But  it  belongs  much  more  tous  than  them.  For  what  is  democracy,  but  the 
equalization  of  human  condition  1  and  where  can  the  world  furnish  equalizing 
agents  more  truly  democratic,  than  cheap,  rapid,  and  commodious  channels  of  in- 
tercourse ?  They  produce  equality,  not  only  among  men  of  every  rank  and  con- 
dition, but  even  among  States  and  nations.  The  steam-engine  on  land  and  water, 
carries  rich  and  poor  alike.  Canals  transport  their  property  alike.  Rivers  and 
harbors  cleared  from  obstructions,  and  guarded  from  dangers,  benefit  all  alike. 
They  do  more.  They  equalize  the  conditions  of  great  communities  of  men. 
The  great  series  of  channels,  natural  and  artificial,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi, not  only  place  the  County  of  Erie  side  by  side  with  the  County  of 
Albany,  but  the  State  of  Iowa  side  by  side  with  the  State  of  New-York. 

On  the  distant  Pacific,  this  nation  possesses  an  almost  boundless  store  of 
metallic  wealth.  Our  young  Democrats,  full  of  energy  and  life,  are  striving  to 
reach  it.    If  we  had  the  power  to  construct  a  road,  which  would  carry  them 


31 

safely,  cheaply  and  quickly,  and  give  them  equal  access  with  their  more  favored 
countrymen  to  the  common  treasure — would  not  such  a  work  be  equalizing 
and  democratic  in  its  effects  ?  And  yet  if  we  should  dare  to  hint  that  Missouri 
with  Benton  at  its  head,  should  be  aided  by  all  constitutional  means  in  exe- 
cuting a  work  so  truly  necessary  to  the  nation — equalizing  the  condition  of 
the  Continent,  placing  Pacific  by  the  side  of  Atlantic  America,  and  thus  riveting 
the  great  bond  of  our  continental  union — would  not  a  whole  army  of  Abstrac- 
tionists be  let  loose  at  once  1 

My  friends,  let  us  not  be  misled  by  party  names,  nor  discouraged  by  party 
clamor — let  us  seek  out  our  duty,  and  faithfully  do  it.  Let  us  remember,  that 
our  generation  comes  early  in  the  nation's  history.  Its  shadow,  lengthened 
by  the  morning  light,  will  fall  far  beyond  the  scanty  span  of  our  narrow 
existence.  Events  are  crowding  quickly  on  us.  It  is  no  time  to  enfeeble  the 
nation's  powers.  Seeing  what  is  at  stake,  let  us  commit  its  guidance  to  men 
like  the  wise  and  far-seeing  patriots,  who  framing  our  noble  constitution,  could 
discern  the  seeds  of  empire  in  the  young  republic — men  possessing  energy  to 
direct  the  present,  and  wisdom  to  discern  the  future. 


YC  25600 


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